Navigation

Connect

A Heart Box for Valentine’s Day by Sherrill Willis

Hi everyone, and welcome to my latest blog! Today, we have ice and snow on the ground here in northern Wisconsin, so join me round the craft table and let’s jump right into today’s project. This one I’m going to do a bit differently, just in case you’d like to make one, too.

A lift the flap die, or a smaller circle/square die – must be smaller than your largest heart die

Liquid glue

Sharp scissors for fussy cutting

OPTIONAL: word dies like Love or Cherish, some ribbon for a bow or bow die for decorating

I couldn’t find another box tutorial quite like this, and really wanted to do something that anyone could do with the dies they have on hand. Here’s my end result, then I will walk you through how I got there:

First, figure out how deep you want your box to be, then score each edge at the ¼ mark, like this:

I find it easier to score then cut, but I’ll leave that to your discretion. So for my box, I wanted it an inch deep, so I scored it at ¼ and 1 ¼, then made a little notch at 1 ½ so I’d know where to cut it on my paper trimmer. That left me with a 1 ½ by 12” strip, which I used for the “wall” of my box.

Using the largest heart die, cut 4 hearts from the red mirror card (2 for the top & 2 for the bottom), one middle heart from cream, and one small heart from the red mirror card. Now here I found out when I put my largest hearts back to back they didn’t line up, so I cut two from the the front of the mirror card, and two from the back, like this:

Hopefully, you won’t run into that problem, but if you do that is my fix for it, and then everything lined up nicely. Now, here I dithered a bit, but in the end (after wasting more mirror card than I’d like to admit) I found it easier to cut the hole in the top of each card, rather than waiting until I glued them together, then cutting. When I did it that way, it messed up the look for me, but if you aren’t as fussy as I am, go ahead glue your 2 pieces you’ve picked for the top together, let it dry, then cut the hole. Or, pick the piece you want on top, cut that piece first, then line it up like this on the other one (yes I know it won’t cut this way, stay with me for a moment).

In that last picture, can you see where the die was embossed? Now you take the die, cut side down and it will have perfect placement. Yes, you could also just use a pencil to make a mark around the squarish part, but this is how I did it. Now, once you have both pieces with a hole, cut the “flap” off one and glue it to the bottom so when you open it, it will be shiny on both sides.

Side note, you can do this without a lift-the-flap die by placing your top cutting plate just shy of the top of your die, like this:

See how just the top of the die is left uncovered by the cutting plate? That will give you your hinge. After you run it through you machine, score a line across the top so you get a nice, even hinge, and viola! You made a perfect flap!

At this point is when I would glue my two top pieces together, so the mirror side shows on the over and under, then put a couple books, or something heavy, on top while it dries.

Now, get the cream strip that you already scored and cut and either fold in half to score it, or score it at 6”. Burnish all score lines and it should look like this:

At the 6” score mark, or the point of the V, cut notches on either side, you’ll end up cutting a little wedge out so you can fold it into the V shape. Next, on either side starting about the 3” & 9” on either side your going to cut frills, or fringe, so the paper curves easily, like this:

Do not cut past the score line into the “wall” portion, just the folded part so you can then glue it to the mirrored hearts like this:

For me, it was easier to glue the top first, to make sure the wall didn’t cover up any part of the hole. Then, when I glued the bottom, I opened the lid and used a metal ruler with a rounded end to smooth the frilled, rounded part to the heart bottom.

Now, all that is left is decorating. Remember those other hearts? Now is the time to layer them on top of the hole, but in order for it to open correctly, I did it a little differently. First, I put a glue square on the middle of the lid and another on the back of the cream card heart. Here’s my twist: I put baby powder on the sticky part of the square on the heart to make it not sticky.

It’s only there to make it level, while I added glue to the sticky part of the square on the lid to make sure it really sticks. Then, I attached the heart to the flap and let that dry, and glued the smallest heart on top. After I was sure everything was dry, I tested the lid to make sure it slides up. Yay! It worked!

All that’s left is to add some embellishments, and I love my glass mat because no more using the back of my hand to glue sentiments! It’s so easy, I just love it. With that said, I’m all done!

I hope you enjoyed my Heart Box, and will give it a try. If you do, I’d love to see what you make, so please post a picture in the comments. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me, I’m having so much fun and happy I get to share it with all of you!